Reconciliation
by TheRedStarAtNight
Summary: With Steve and Natasha watching his back, Bucky believed he could reconcile the man he was and the man he was becoming. Set Post-The Winter Soldier.


Reconciliation  
2014 The Red Star At Night

His psyche was made up of a thousand threads pulled apart, a life unravelled, then made again a new only to be shredded over and over again through the decades. Since waking that final time, he'd been slowly weaving those threads back together as best he could. Eventually, and with their help, he had been remade, though the pattern had been irrevocably changed.

The sex had also helped, as it turned out. He wasn't so sure the first time, quaking beneath her from an experience so intense he was on the verge of tears, but since then he'd accepted it had helped him feel human and like a man again. There were flashes of memory from the past when they'd been different people but each time he pushed them away. He did not want to admit who they'd been, but their bodies remembered. There were moments with her when he thought he was half way to being whole again, even as she lay with her ear to his heart and the cold metal of his left arm cradling her warm, yielding flesh. He let it happen a second time, if only to prove to himself that he was capable of a gentle touch. He was allowed to forget everything for a little while and think only of her and when it was over and they lay sweat drenched and tired next to each other on the motel room bed, he was grateful. He made sure she knew it. When he whispered with reverence _Natasha_ or sometimes _Natalia, _he made her shiver. With the kisses he bestowed upon the scars he had put on her he made her whimper with need. And with the way he held her so possessively while he slept, he let her know that he thought of her as his.

She'd found him a few weeks after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D, looking every bit a drowned rat, crouched low at the end of an alley on a dark, rain soaked night. She'd been stalking him for days and each knew the other was near, but played the game until he'd finally had enough of evading her and relented. He waited for her and didn't raise his eyes when she extended a her hand, but reached up took hold of it, the warmth of her skin suffusing his. He let her raise him up and walk him out of the darkness. He'd kept his other hand hidden inside his jacket pocket, despite the fact that out of everyone, the sight of it would bother her the least.

He didn't say a thing for the first twenty-four hours, even as she ordered him about, cut his hair for him and brought him new clothes to wear. It felt like a costume for the most part, but in no longer being restricted by the uniform they'd put him, he was able shirk off the memories of being strapped down and tortured. The dilemma remained however. What was his purpose? He was a soldier and without a uniform and a commander, he didn't know who he was supposed to be. Of course, he didn't entirely know who he'd been either.

Nothing happened for the first week. They took long walks in the city, from after dusk until shortly before dawn. He remembered the place he once knew much differently. During the day she kept watch while he slept restlessly. He wondered when she ever slept, because she was always at his side when the nightmares consumed him. She spoke soothing words to him, sometimes in Russian and it made him feel cold and ugly inside until the words started to come in English she called him _James_. He'd felt the terror ebb away. He'd fall back asleep eventually and dream about being a kid and his best friend, a scrawny little punk who picked fights with the biggest bullies he could find just prove that he wasn't a coward. He dreamt of swimming in the river under the train tracks and the girl he first kissed. He saw colours again and felt the sun against his skin. He dreamed that he was whole and forgot the sound metal scraping against metal as he extended his left arm.

He learned that she'd been the cause of those dreams, whispering suggestions to him, planting images and memories in his head. In hindsight he realized they were meant to help him trigger real memories, but at the time he'd been consumed with rage and they'd had it out. He supposed it could be seen as progress that he'd forgotten his own strength and that his left arm was not flesh and bone any longer. He nursed her through the concussion he'd given her and felt genuine guilt every second of the days that followed. Guilt was not something that was a part of the Winter Soldier, so there again it was a step forwards. Not that it eased the pain in his heart any. He wondered if her slip up was deliberate just so he could feel something real again.

They'd started talking and she'd started calling him _Bucky_. He spoke little and listened most of the time, to her recounting how the Avengers came together and the Battle for New York. Pride was also not part of his programming, but he couldn't deny he felt incredibly proud of his best friend, especially for how he'd not wavered from the hero he'd always been.

Little by little he began to realize what she was doing. She wanted to make him at least half whole before bringing him back to The Captain. His recovery wouldn't have been possible if she was anybody else, if it had been Steve with him instead. She understood. She'd been where he was - angry, frustrated and broken. They shared the same side of the coin and Captain America was on the other.

They moved on once her head was clear, and ended up in Indiana. It sure as hell didn't feel like home to him, but there was a familiarity to it that scratched at the back of his mind and wouldn't let him ignore it.

She'd been able handle him at his worst and on occasion she gets him at his best. When a song or scent triggered something, for a split second he was completely Bucky again and held on to the knowledge for as long as possible. Somewhere in the middle of all the chaos inside his head, he kissed her and following his initiative, she took it further the next night. Even as it was happening he couldn't quite believe it, but he surrendered and when the breaking point came and he'd given her control over him, he realized that he was finally free. She never wanted anyone to know that she had a soft heart when it came to him, but he knew it was there and he aimed to take care of it, if she'd let him - and even if she didn't.

They hit the road again and things had changed for the better. Still, there was no getting around the fact that one of his limbs was constructed of metal and as conspicuous as Stark Tower on the New York skyline. Wiith a jacket and gloves and the practiced excuse that he was a soldier and he'd suffered burns during his last tour, he usually passed unquestioned. However, it was not always possible to remain in the shadows when his latent impulse to be a gentleman like in his earliest days began to rise to the surface. He still hated bullies. In a seedy bar in the middle of nowhere he showed a poor waitress in need a little chivalry and rescued her from the gropes of a group of rather savage looking bikers. All hell broke loose and Natasha sat in the corner and watched as the Winter Soldier made an appearance. He laid over a dozen of them out flat in under five minutes. To his credit he didn't kill a single one. Of course several were unconscious and pretty much all of them had more than one broken bone, stab wound or piece of flesh perforated by a bullet.

After the bikers and their cronies had run away with their tails between their legs, he'd slow-danced with his best girl to Glenn Miller's _Moonlight Serenade_ crackling from the dusty jukebox in the corner that hadn't been played since the 1960s.

Natasha kept them at least a day ahead of The Captain and his friend dubbed The Falcon, but they'd left an easy enough trail for them to follow, consisting of children rescued from a burning school, miners freed from a cave-in and the stories from the victims of fifty car pile up on the interstate that would've ended countless lives had a man with a gleaming metal arm not been pulling doors off cars left, right and center with the ease one might tear a piece of paper in half.

They crisscrossed America for weeks, then headed down south as far as Chili before going out into the world.

It was half a year before they came back the land of the Free and the home of the Brave. Steve had given up his pursuit when the Avengers called upon him again and didn't resume looking for him after that. Natasha had returned to him however, and had kept her word to keep him a secret from Steve. Bucky hadn't realized how much he'd missed her until she'd found him on the outskirts of a secret military base in Russia during the middle of snow storm. He'd been reconciling where James Buchanan Barnes had ended and where the Winter Soldier had begun and it had brought him to the place he'd needed to be in order to help do that. It wasn't the first place they'd worked on him, but it had been one of them.

As they walked away from the inferno they'd left in their wake, she'd run her fingers through he lengths of his hair and told him he needed to have it cut again. He'd held her and kissed her and asked her not to leave him on his own again for a good long while.

Then came the summer and the stifling heat of July where Bucky lurked in the shadows. He'd followed Steve for several consecutive nights and days. Dressed in civilian clothing with his hair concealed under a baseball cap, he went largely unnoticed, even in a city like Washington, DC that eyes and ears perched on every roof top and under every manhole in the street.

Bucky remembered most of what he'd lost - what had been taken from him. Natasha sometimes called him James in private when her eyes were their most sincere and earnest. Each time he took her to his bed he was Bucky again and when he woke the next morning, more often than not, he still was. He still dreamt of the fall from the train and remembered the soul snatching fear of knowing death was but seconds away, but her touch gave chase the demons of the past and it comforted him. For the first time since then, he felt like he had the potential to be a force for good in the world.

Bucky had always been a bit of joker, but not usually when it came to Steve since the skinny kid he's known was so often the butt of other peoples'. Yet in this instance he decided that levity was a must. There wasn't a right way to introduce himself back into his best friend's life, so he thought he might as well do it in a decidedly ridiculous one.

He paused, reminding himself that he and Steve weren't what they used to be. But at the least he knew his oldest friend would give him a chance to prove himself. He waited until Steve ran past and then broke out from behind the big oaks and took off in the fastest sprint he could muster. He caught up fairly quickly, close enough that the light of the dawning sun glinted off the bit of exposed metal of his left wrist and reflected the light into Steve's eyes. The Captain turned his head and would've faltered had Bucky not smirked.

"Race yah!" he challenged as he took the lead. They ran neck and neck for miles, Bucky lagging, but always managed to catch up. There was time when their roles had been reversed and he'd faked a muscle cramp so Steve could catch up to him, but he only ever let him win once. This time he was winning outright, but Bucky's was not going to let it be an easy victory. He pushed himself harder then ever and it made his lungs burn.

"On your left!" Steve shouted as he came upon his friend, the one called The Falcon.

Bucky looked forward to making the man's acquaintance, not to mention apologizing. He grinned despite himself. "On your right!" Bucky called out, just two strides behind Steve.

"On my... what?" the other man replied in confusion. With the sun now above the horizon, the bit of exposed metal refracted the light all around them and there was no mistaking who it was who was running along side The Captain. "Shit! Steve!"

They broke away, their race still on and both of them determined to win. The end was in sight, where the path met the sidewalk and the street. Bucky had lost the baseball cap he'd been wearing somewhere far behind, but it was waiting for him at the end of the line, in the hand of his best girl. The bemused look on her face spurned him on and for a few seconds he had the lead. Steve still got to the end first, but it didn't matter. They'd reached it together.

Bucky sputtered and heaved and Steve was gracious enough to act winded. The Falcon stopped a few yards away, keeping himself on guard.

"Do you remember that time I saved you from drowning?" Bucky asked, still breathless and leaning against a tree. He wiped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his jacket, his thoughts half turning to the idea of inviting Natasha into the shower later. He winked at her and she smiled back.

"Which time was that?" Steve asked, standing straight two feet away.

"The first time." He couldn't quite smile at the memory, but at least it was a memory, a real one.

"Yeah, I remember."

"So do I." There was a pause, a long one, and Bucky saw what could only be taken as a real genuine in Steve's eyes. "Three months before I shipped out, it was the end of February, or was it the beginning of March?"

"It was March."

"And I had to pull your sorry hide out of the Hudson because you took a dare from some asshole Marine who swore he'd swam across to Jersey and you jumped in even though you knew he was lying just to prove you were brave enough to do it. If I hadn't already been looking for you, you would've died!"

"I was holding my own."

"The hell you were! The river was still half frozen! It was the damn Hudson River and there you were almost mile out still trying to make it to Hoboken! We were lucky we didn't get hypothermia!" Steve smiled and Bucky mirrored it. There was silence again and the two men looked at each other.

"I remember the second time. Not so long ago," Steve said, his voice sober.

"No, not so long ago. A lot's happened since then."

"I can see that."

"I'm not the man I was. Either of them."

"I can see that too."

"But I remember."

"I never forgot. I had faith. I knew you were in there somewhere."

"Good thing, because I sure didn't." Suddenly there was a lump in his throat and he nearly choked on the words, but he'd been meaning to say them for so long that he couldn't keep them back any longer. "Thank you. For not giving up on me."

Steve felt it too. That much was obvious by the way his jaw clenched and his eyes shone with unshed tears. "How could I? You never gave up on me. I could've jumped into the Hudson a hundred times and without fail, you'd have fished me out."

They couldn't be certain which one reached first, but a second later they were holding on to each other in a fierce hug. There were no words that could do justice to what either were feeling. Neither one spoke or let go.

They only broke apart, some long minutes later, when Bucky noticed Natasha making her retreat. He sniffed and wiped at his eyes and gave Steve's shoulder a squeeze before racing after her. Without a thought to hide anything from their two witnesses, he caught her up in his arms and kissed her with a passion that for a moment consumed them completely. He touched the side of her face with his gloved hand, her fingers closing around the metal of his wrist. "I love you," he spoke softly, looking her in the eye. There'd never been a right time to say it, but the words had come unbidden and he didn't regret them.

She kissed him again and settled her hand on the back of his neck while the other put the cap back on his head. "I won't be far. You two need some time. I'll be there when you need me."

He watched her go, bereft and torn as to whether or not to follow again and ask her to stay. She stopped and turned and he took a step towards her.

She replied to his confession in Russian, then left him. Awestruck and uplifted, he didn't take his eyes from her as he watched her go, even as Steve came up and put his arm around his shoulders.

"My Russian's pretty rusty," Steve mused. "But did she just say what I thought she said?"

Slipping his arm around Steve's own shoulders, he grinned. "There's a lot of fine dames out there, Cap, but none of them have a patch on mine."

It was difficult in the first few days, to catch up with over seventy years of shared missed history. The world they grew up in and fought for was long dead, much like their friends and much like they'd been. They don't try to pretend it was like old times, but they did marvel at sitting together over beers and talking about old times. They don't avoid the dark corners and the looming shadows of their past. There were no illusions between them. Bucky hadn't been a shining example of Americana during W. the way Captain America had been. Sergeant Barnes had done some ugly things in the name of freedom, saving Steve from having to do them himself. Steve had killed before, but he'd never had red, fresh and hot blood on his hands. Bucky had been a soldier and had accepted all that went with it. He had been a good man doing bad things then, and he'd been damn good at it. Voices from those times still echoed in his head - usually the dying cries of a Nazi, muffled by a strong hand as he twisted the knife in his back. Sometimes Bucky swore he could still hear the whiz of his sniper's bullet cut through the air.

The Winter Soldier's memories were far more gruesome and lacked any shred of nobility. At least in the war they'd been fighting for something that had been noble. He doubted he'd ever evade those ghosts entirely.

They remembered and drank toasts to the Howling Commandos, but later one night Bucky had wakened in screams as he'd tried to escape the nightmare he'd been trapped in. His sleep had already been lousy without Natasha by his side. After he'd come out of it, he'd sobbed his guts out in Steve's arms and clung to his friend like a lifeline.

After that they needed a change of scenery and Nick Fury offered them a simple assignment in Eastern Europe. It was a little too close to familiar as they camped out on the side of snowy mountain, but there was a certain dead calm as the snow fell outside their tent as they wait to strike at first light. Steve became his confessor and Bucky confided his every sin as the Winter Soldier in excruciating detail. Steve encouraged him to talk, reasoning that a burden shared was a burden halved. Bucky knew he'd never find absolution, but in hearing Steve say that he forgave him for his perceived failure, Bucky finally accepted that he might be able to live with himself.

Natasha joined them on their journey back to civilization. Bucky felt like a bit of a giddy fool when he was unable to hide his happiness at seeing her again. She'd dropped down in front of them from the roof above where they were attempting sneak into a lot of seized cars to facilitate transport for themselves to the border. She offered him an indulgent smile at his large grin and rolled her eyes in front of Steve, but later showed him exactly how much she'd missed him too - once they were safely in the next country. He understood why she'd left them alone, now that he and Steve had come out the other side of it.

They made it back States-side a few days later. Bucky and Natasha disappeared to continue what had kept Steve awake for the past four nights. He could appreciate and forgive that side of Bucky, since it had always been there. It roused him enough to take Sharon out for dinner and while Captain America might've bold enough to take a page from Bucky's book, Steve wasn't quite as so, but that wasn't to say that he and Sharon hadn't concluded their date with smiles on both their faces.

Time passed, there were new threats to deal with. Life rolled on. The Winter Soldier emerged when he was needed, but Bucky had the wheel. He and Steve came to a new understanding about their friendship. They stood as equals, but moreso because as far as they were concerned they were brothers and not because they'd both been the subjects of wild science experiments. His relationship with Natasha remained strong. They never dwelled on the past. It was the future they cared about. Both knew there'd never be such a thing as marriage and children for them. It was impossible given the innumerable factors against it, but they knew they were deeply connected and wanted to remain so.

Above all, Bucky knew he'd never put his time as The Winter Soldier behind him, especially not when Fury, the Avengers and someone named Phil Coulson insisted his keep the code name. Tony Stark declared it was too cool to give up. Only Steve and Natasha understood his reluctance, though he reasoned that since he'd managed to keep the skills he'd been programmed with, he might as well keep the name too. It struck fear in the hearts of many, especially those who'd once been a part of the organization that had controlled him.

That wasn't to say that the nightmares of his past didn't haunt him still, or that there weren't times when he doubted himself and his sanity, but with Steve and Natasha watching his back, Bucky believed he could reconcile the man he was and the man he was becoming.

The End


End file.
